Second Touch (29 page)

emptied as commerce came to an end. Peniel glanced up a lane of shops. A flash of sunlight glinted off something that gleamed bronze in the sun. Gideon stared in the same direction. “You saw it too. A sword?” Peniel inquired. “Here? Not likely.” Gideon shrugged. “But say! So we’re that close behind the Messiah, eh? So what are we waiting for?” “Three days behind is not a short walk,” Amos chided. “No point in rushing about in the heat.” “Here’s a plan.” Gideon beckoned for Peniel and Amos to come closer. “You know why we’re three days behind, eh?” He gestured with his crutch in the direction of Jekuthiel’s hiding place. “We treated the leper all right . . . better than he deserves. Amos is right. Let’s leave him here. We’ll go twice as fast.” Amos’ chubby hands grabbed a double handful of his wiry beard in thought. “It’s true what he says, Peniel. Nobody ¬ever even talks to a—” the dwarf lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“a leper. He’ll just have to ¬understand.” “I promised,” Peniel argued. “Promised to take him. That’s it. You two go on if you’ve a mind. But ¬I’m going back for him.” Amos bristled before Gideon cut him off. “Wouldn’t think of it. Only a suggestion,” Gideon said. “You’re the captain. But we’re wasting time. Let’s pack up and get going.”

“Hawk’s still gone,” Lily commented when Rabbi Ahava settled himself. The sun was nearly straight overhead, the shade meager. “I heard,” he replied. She sat beside a lone broom tree on a promontory overlooking the settlement. The thick cluster of the shrub’s spindly branches bristled upward from its base in the shape of a hand. This was a hot, bare, lonely place, difficult to reach. The struggle required to get here meant Rabbi Ahava had something on his mind, something to say to her, but for Lily no words of comfort would help. She would stop him before he got started. Pent-up bitterness foamed out of Lily like a jug of vinegar to which soda had been added. “He took ¬everything. He takes ¬everything. You can have almost nothing and still lose it.” The rabbi knew who it was Lily accused. She went on. “He’s cruel. Why else give hope, then . . .” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Can’t take care of Deborah. Barely fed her and Baruch and me before. Now Hawk’s gone too. Why? Just cruel.” Lily expected Rabbi Ahava to interrupt her diatribe, to denounce her for blasphemy, to call fire down on her head, to say something. He remained mute, forcing her to continue. “I have nothing left to care about . . . or won’t soon. My family first. Then Jekuthiel . . . that’ll kill Deborah. Cantor . . . my life, my hope! Now the last . . . punishment! Isn’t there a limit? Isn’t there?”

“And little Baruch?” Ahava prodded gently. “And baby Isra’el?” Lily nodded, gulping, but still refused to admit any remaining ties. “Better off with someone else,” she asserted, reaching up to snap an overhanging limb off the thumb of the broom shrub. “Is the journey too hard for you?” Ahava asked. “Beyond hard. It’s impossible!” she said savagely, with a look daring him to contradict her. Ahava reached out for the sprig of juniper, and Lily passed it to him. She imagined him whipping her with it, but instead he twirled it in his fingers and said, “I’ve known a time here when crops failed, and we ate the roots of broom trees ground into a kind of flour. Bitter, they are, but keep you alive. Use the roots for charcoal too; bake a cake of juniper roots on a fire of juniper roots.” What was this about? She was no Torah schoolboy to puzzle over wordy and complex questions of Scripture lore. “I ¬don’t ¬understand you,” she said. “You know Elijah? The prophet the ravens fed, like the Hawk fed you?” Lily nodded. “When Elijah ran from Queen Jezebel, he fled into the wilderness,” the rabbi went on. “Rested ¬under a broom tree—prayed he might die.”48 Rabbi Ahava gazed into Lily’s eyes and lifted the scaly patches of skin where his eyebrows had been. Lily ducked her head. Of course he knew she wanted to die! Who ¬wouldn’t? “This ¬isn’t about guilt, Lily,” the rabbi said kindly. “Elohim told Elijah, ‘The journey is too hard for you.’ And Elohim baked Elijah bread and brought him water and told him to rest.” “How will I ¬ever rest again?” Lily cried. “How?” Ahava did not respond to the desperate plea and continued the story. “After the prophet had rested more and then journeyed more, Elohim asked what he was doing out in the wilderness, running away. Elijah ¬didn’t hold back: told God ¬every difficult duty he’d ¬ever performed for God. Complained how alone he was, how terrible his life was. On and on, even in the very presence of El Olam, the Almighty, the Eternal, Elijah complained and complained. And did Elohim strike him down?” Lily shook her head. She knew this story, even if she still ¬didn’t ¬understand what it had to do with her. “No, he ¬didn’t,” Rabbi Ahava agreed. “He patiently let Elijah pour out all his complaints, and then he gave him hope. Gave him hope and a new mission. Gave his life purpose again.” “But all my life’s purpose is gone, buried over there,” Lily said sharply, pointing toward the visible heap of earth and the dead, dried-up flowers over Cantor’s grave. “Lily,” Ahava said, “I sometimes wonder if the bread Elohim baked for Elijah ¬wasn’t broom roots. Keeps you alive, but oh, so bitter! You can go on in bitterness, but why not ask Elohim for new purpose instead? Even if you submit to the will of Elohim, if you submit without believing in his

love, all your life will be is bitter.” A tinkling bell, followed by a piercing scream overhead, made both Lily and Rabbi Ahava look up. The Hawk, veering from side to side as he struggled to balance his burden, swooped toward the broom shrub. With difficulty he flared to stop his dive . . . and dropped a pigeon almost as large as himself at Lily’s feet.

The three beggars rejoined Jekuthiel outside the village. Gideon was suddenly on fire to catch up with Yeshua. In place of his customary pugnacious griping, the cripple brimmed with cooperative energy. “Let me carry two of the waterskins,” he offered. “Peniel can help the leper. We’ll move faster.” The thought of Jekuthiel leaning on him, putting a hand on his shoulder, breathing the same air, was almost more than Peniel could bear. Jekuthiel took a long draught of fresh water and wiped his mouth. The leper refastened the obscuring veil over the ruins of his face. He eliminated the dilemma by saying, “Let . . . Peniel . . . take . . . my . . . water and . . . provisions. I can . . . manage.” At the edge of the meadow Peniel located a stout tamarisk limb. Trimmed of leaves, the pole was straight enough to tote waterskins and pouches on the ends. Peniel carried it across his shoulders. “Now,” he said, “better the long way around the meadow.” “Not at all,” Gideon argued. “Town’s quiet. Seen us already. Nobody’s worried about strangers. Go straight through town.” “Through the village?” Amos said doubtfully. “Walk with a leper? What a man thinks up for himself, his worst enemy ¬couldn’t wish for him!” “No,” Gideon admitted. “Jekuthiel follows behind. We wait for him at the other end. Easy.” Peniel studied the hummocks and thick overgrowth of the meadow. He considered the shallow but steep ravine of the creek bed and compared it to the level expanse of roadway. In a low wheeze Jekuthiel warned, “Told you . . . you pick . . . the route.” “It’s all right,” Peniel decided. “Easier and quicker on the road. We’ll cut through the town. Let’s go.” The main street of Abel-Meholah was deserted. Strange for the time of day, it seemed to Peniel. Despite the quiet of the place, something was amiss. Gideon kept well out front of the trio, urging the others to hurry up. Peniel was uneasy. Several times he looked around to watch Jekuthiel’s halting progress. “Unclean!” came the leper’s required warning as he entered the village. “Unclean!” There was no one around to hear him. The town seemed empty. Jekuthiel was just passing the well. Peniel was at the opposite end of Abel-Meholah when a gang of toughs burst into view. Five rough-looking men, cloaked despite the heat, appeared from an alleyway. Their fists were

clenched. “Get! Hey, you! Chedel! Tsara’at! Get out of here!” one bellowed, throwing the first stone. “No scum allowed here!” The first rock sailed over Jekuthiel’s head. He ducked to escape the second. “Clear off!” The next pair of stones struck him, one in the leg and another in the back as he turned away. The attackers formed a screen, blocking Jekuthiel’s advance down the street, separating him from Peniel. “Let’s get out of here,” Gideon urged. Peniel dropped water and food from the carrying pole. Bracing it in both hands like a club, he started forward. Gideon grabbed him by the arm. “Whatever you’re planning, ¬don’t!” Jekuthiel’s tormentors kept their distance . . . circling . . . circling. Flinging clods and laughing as he flinched and ducked. Their backs were to Peniel and the others. Amos cowered behind a tree stump. Peniel shook off Gideon’s grip. “Not for a leper!” Gideon shouted. “You’ll get killed!” Whirling the pole overhead, Peniel charged into the fray. “Leave him be!” he cried. Peniel’s assault, coming from behind, took Jekuthiel’s assailants by surprise. The first swipe of the tree limb battered two of the enemy apart and opened a route through to Jekuthiel. “Let him alone!” Peniel insisted again. “Stop it!” He stood defensively in front of the leper, facing the foes. Peniel had no time to consider it just then, but one of the cloaked attackers looked very much like one of the Temple Guards: same inadequate chin, same bulging eyes, exaggerated throat. Another rock hit Jekuthiel in the head. He moaned and stumbled over the watering trough, then fell to his knees. Peniel rushed at the thrower, slashed downward with his stick but missed. A fist crashed into Peniel’s ear. His pole spun away, clattering onto the mouth of the well. It teetered on the brink of the cistern, then rolled into the stone basin beside it. Villagers appeared at windows and doors to view the disturbance. “Lepers!” someone called. “Chedel drinking from our well! Polluting our water!” Suddenly the street was filled with people, all shouting and gesturing. A stone struck Peniel in the knee. Gideon rushed up. “Not him,” he yelled. “We’re not lepers.” A clod the size of a hen’s egg bounced off Gideon’s nose, making it gush blood. “Not me, either!” “They’re lepers,” another villager bellowed. “Drank from our well! Stone them all!” Amos bustled into the conflict, adding his screech to the pandemonium. A

rock bounced off the top of his head, stunning him before he struck a single blow. Jekuthiel grasped Peniel’s tree branch and levered himself upright. His veil was gone, revealing the gaping wound where a face should have been. As if meeting an apparition rising from the grave, the crowd groaned and drew back a pace. Peniel grabbed Amos. He tried to lift the dwarf but failed, then took the small man by both arms and dragged him. “Stop!” Peniel yelled. “We’re going. Come on, Jekuthiel.” Rocks continued to shower around them until the four beggars passed the boundary marker of Abel-Meholah. The quartet did not stop their retreat until a cave in the ravine provided a shelter out of sight of the road to dress their bloody wounds.

Peniel’s ear was split from the clout he received. Blood matted Amos’ hair and beard from crown to chin. The dwarf was near hysteria. “What! What was that, Peniel? You want to die? Those who ¬can’t bite ¬shouldn’t show their teeth!” Peniel shrugged and muttered, “When one has nothing to answer, it’s best to shut up.” “That’s right!” Amos shook his finger at Peniel. “Well spoken! Yes!” Gideon’s nose was swollen to twice normal size, and he had two black eyes. Of all the companions, ¬only Jekuthiel’s injuries were unseen and unremarked on. Peniel wondered whether ¬under the concealing robe Jekuthiel was a mass of bruises or open sores. The phlegmatic leper, seated some distance away, gave no sign he was any worse off than he had been before the attack. “Those men,” Peniel remarked. He held a dampened fold of his cloak as a compress on the side of his head. “The first ones. They already had rocks in their hands.” “So?” Gideon queried, tying a strip torn from the bottom of his tunic around Amos’ head. “They came to stone a leper.” “But they’d already picked up the stones. Before Jekuthiel was in sight,” Peniel objected. “How’d they know he was coming?” Gideon made a dismissive noise. “Want to go back and ask?” he sneered. “Men throw stones at lepers. No explanation needed.” “Yes! When you want to beat a dog, be sure to find a stick! What else are they going to stone a leper with? Bread?” Amos dabbed his brow, examined his own blood. Dabbed and stared. Dabbed and looked. Peniel ignored him. “But it’s like they intended to drive him back, away from us.” “You’re imagining things,” Gideon scoffed. “We’re just lucky we ¬weren’t all killed. No thanks to that one—” he flipped his hand at Jekuthiel—“that we ¬weren’t. I warned you to leave him.” “You’re also the one who said going through town was faster,” Amos put in. “Man thinks and God laughs.”

“You keep out of this!” Gideon warned, yanking on the knotted bandage and wringing a squawk of protest from the dwarf. Minutes of silent, mutual recrimination passed and then Amos said, “Maybe they failed to turn back the leper, but it worked on me.” Peniel passed a waterskin to the dwarf and asked what he meant. “This looking for Messiah,” Amos explained. “It’s not worth it. I mean, maybe he is and maybe he ¬isn’t. But sleeping ¬under bushes . . . going hungry . . . now being nearly killed. In Yerushalayim I was never once stoned . . . oh, kicked and cuffed, of course, but that ¬doesn’t count.” The dwarf shrugged. “Nobody ¬ever tried to kill me. What ¬I’m saying is, I’ve had enough. ¬I’m going back. A man should stay alive, if ¬only out of curiosity.” “But we’ve come so far,” Peniel protested. “And we know he’s just up ahead. Don’t quit now.” Amos shook his head and winced. “Don’t you think ¬every town we come to now will know that a dwarf and a cripple are traveling with a leper? It’ll get worse, not better. Sometimes the remedy’s worse than the disease. No, my mind’s made up. ¬I’m leaving in the morning.” “He’s staring at me again,” Gideon said, pointing at Jekuthiel. “I tell you, he’s bad luck. Better get rid of him soon, or none of us will make it to Messiah.” “Listen, Amos,” Peniel said. “Think it over. Sleep on it. If you ¬can’t endure the bad, you’ll not survive to witness the good, eh? Well spoken?” Amos screwed up his bloodied face. “Survive. Better a live dwarf than a tall dead man. That’s what ¬I’m talking about.”